The Green New Deal: First, They Came for the Cows and I Did Nothing

The Green New Deal: First, They Came for the Cows and I Did Nothing

What’s their beef with beef? By beef, of course, I mean cows. Any cursory review of the widely parsed Green New Deal shows that its backers don’t like them and want them eliminated. We are told cows are destroying the earth with methane emissions, although early versions of the proposal’s FAQs used the far more technical term – cow farts.

Imagine a world without cows – no meat or milk, no cottage cheese, no tailgate parties. Nobody in their right mind, not even in Berkley, would grill kale patties before a football game. Kale, for those keeping score, is not really a vegetable, but merely a weed with a good publicist.

The Green New Deal is, of course, the brain-child (emphasis on child) of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the first-term congresswoman from the Bronx. AOC, as she has become known, is perhaps the best example of the Democratic Party’s latest successful efforts – to recruit better bartenders. The Democrats haven’t had a top-notch bartender in Washington since Chris Dodd retired. Prior to arriving in Washington, her claim to fame was her ability to make a really mean gin fizz.

In generations past, many of the best comedians had great straight men to set up the jokes. Lou Costello had Bud Abbott, Gracie Allen had George Burns, Dick Martin had Dan Rowan and Joe Biden had the media. AOC has Senator Ed Markey (D-MA):

AOC: Geez, was it hot out today.

Markey: How (two chuckles here), ah, how hot was it?

AOC: It was so hot that even those willing to work were unwilling to work.

Markey: (Long sustained guffaws)

Arrogance and ignorance usually make for a dangerous combination in most people. For AOC, however, it’s a pure comedic genius.

She has stated that to help fight climate change people don’t need to be eating burgers for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Who does that? Okay, well, I have on occasion, but only when I was out of frozen burritos.

Recently, AOC even wondered aloud if people ought to be having kids. The earth hangs in the balance and all that. There will certainly be great interest in who the Procreation Czar would be. Even AOC should know that people having kids is a rather crucial part of human sustainability.

The Green New Deal wants to do to airplanes what it does to cows. After all, one can’t eat them, nor do they even produce cottage cheese. Instead, it wants to go back to the 19thcentury and make trains the primary mode of long-distance transportation. Following California’s example, this is surely a winner.

California recently canceled the high speed “bullet train” route that was being constructed to run between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Cost estimates ballooned from the original $37 billion in 2008 to nearly $100 billion last year. Yet, after 10 years, Californians have not even one foot of track to show for their expenditures or even a Slip N’ Slide.

If the Green New Deal were to be implemented, that swim-suit you purchase on Amazon just in time for summer will almost certainly arrive by Halloween at a shipping cost of only $3,250. Of course, Amazon Prime High-SpeedRail members will get a guaranteed delivery date of Labor Day at a “nearly free” shipping fee of $725.

And have they considered what eliminating planes would do to professional sports? Following that three-game series your team just wrapped up in Washington on Sunday, they travel to Los Angeles to play the Dodgers – arriving four days later. Suddenly, the next baseball season will last 15 months. There will be double-headers in frigid Cleveland in January and spring training will begin in June. How does that make any sense?

Once one gets past the cows and airplanes, we learn in the document that every building in the country will be retrofitted to “achieve maximal energy efficiency, water efficiency, safety, affordability, comfort, and durability, including through electrification.” Every building. Every one of them. I’m fairly certain there are a lot of buildings in the country. A lot! But what I want to focus on is maximal comfort. When they come to my house, I really want a new recliner, one that achieves maximal comfort. I have looked on the La-Z-boy website and have put a few in my shopping cart. I have forwarded to AOC and am awaiting a reply.

Nothing says let’s fight climate change like a guaranteed job, guaranteed income and free college. Naturally, the Green New Deal includes all of that. An early version of the FAQs stated that there would be guaranteed income for those unable or “unwilling to work.” I presume they had members of Congress in mind when they wrote that. No group in the country seems more unwilling to work than Congress. I expect my congressional representative to do nothing. In fact, I encourage it. It’s only when Congress decides to do something that bad things happen – like the Green New Deal.

How much would this cost? One estimate suggests it will cost as much as $93,000,000,000, or about $600,000 per household. Whoa! That seems like a lot. I think that’s even more than the Philadelphia Phillies reportedly will pay Bryce Harper next season.

Given that sobering news, I have decided to rethink my request for a new recliner. The one I have now isn’t too bad. Sure, it’s little worn and I spilled a little Heineken on it a few weeks ago, but you can hardly see the stain now. Besides, even if I decide to get a new one, I can probably find one I like for much less than $600,000, particularly if I have a coupon.

What conclusions can be drawn from a reading of the Green New Deal? First, these people are nuts. Second, it is a veritable smorgasbord, a cornucopia of progressive ideals. Third, if implemented, there soon will be no cows, airplanes, kids, money or common sense. Fourth, these people are nuts.